The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (2008)

Comments are so tough with the film that I feel alone in the camp of the "positives".OK this film is far from being a perfection and I think I will never understand the very purpose of it. I even hesitate to say what was the topic. I assume it was about the coming-out of the main character, but even that I am not sure.Plus, I can't say Jon Foster, the main actor, is captivating. So why did I like ?I think the main thing I appreciated in that film is the atmosphere of mysteries. As the title suggests it, all along the film provides an imperceptible mystery. Because it plays with suggestions and switches. The storyline helps for sure to plunge into this atmosphere as the storyline is a mystery in itself ! But there are other causes. The photography for example, which clearly remains in my mind. Although Pittsburg is not a beauty on its own, the director manages to capture some good photos of it. Also the director did well regarding the changing weathers and lights. Switching between sun and rain, lights, twillights and darkness.The soundtrack follows the mysterious atmosphere well too.Saarsgard plays an interesting character as he acts an ambivalent tough but sensitive bi-sexual. There is also the constant hesitations of the main character. Obey his father or not ? The dark haired girl or the blond one ? The girlfriend or the boyfriend ? We can also capture the questionings of all the others characters.All this provides a sentiment of interrogations.So this atmosphere the director manages to render leads us not to be surprised when the main character admits at the end he is confused, because this is the feeling we have too.Mysteries. This is what I appreciated in this film I guess.

...they bothered making this movie? Anyone? I didn't think so.If you are looking for a coming-of-age movie, go rent Summer of '42. This is no Summer of '42.When your big stars are Nolte & Sarsgaard, & Sarsgaard gets more screen time, that is your first warning sign And, of course, for such an "artsy" movie, there is plenty of cursing & skin flung around, just to make it look "artsy".Sarsgaard did his usual uninteresting, cardboard character, punctuated by moments that were supposed to be intense. The intensity is that of someone with bi-polar disorder.Miller is most famous for her looks & what she had to say about the city of Pittsburgh after this movie. Pittsburgh SHOULD hold a grudge against her. She misrepresented an actual Pittsburgh native.Foster gave Sarsgaard a run for his money in the cardboard acting style. Wow! Was this his first role after high school graduation?So, we have this weird triangle. Foster has a crush on Miller, but is with his boss/girlfriend. He can't take Miller to bed, & won't take his boss to bed. So, he hangs with Sarsgaard & Miller, & watches them get it on.Then, after one of Sarsgaard's pseudo-intense moments, Foster & Miller get it on, a scene that we are "treated" to in every sloppy, moaning detail. Finally, just to round it all out, Foster & Sarsgaard get it on, with Foster in the Miller role. Now I know how 2 guys get it on (as if that was ever anything I needed to know).After all that, all that's left is the tragic ending for one character & the retrospective views of the remaining 2. It gets me right in the pit of my stomach. Oh, wait! That was the pepperoni pizza I just had.I'd like back the time this movie took out of my life, please.

A friend of mine gave me this movie. A friend of mine is now in a hospital were a team of doctors are trying to surgically remove a DVD casing from his ***. I got quit excited by the prospects of an other Michael Chabon movie. After all his novels have brought me much entertainment and previous screenplay adaptations were great, but boy, was I wrong.First off the people that did the casting must have been asleep whilst doing so. I imagine the castings went something like this. "Tell me, do you like fish?" "Yes I enjoy fish very much." "Wonder full, you're hired. Have some money." Than there is the script. I have read Chabon, who I hope went blind before he could see this piece of dong, and it has absolutely nothing to do with his novel. I'm not quit sure why it annoyed me like it did, but it might have something to do with the fact that listening to a speech impaired 90 year old drunk duck hunter with a right cranial lobe dysfunction would have been a treat in comparison to the one-liners these 2nd degree model massacre kids spat out.This is an actual line from the movie; "If you tell me something that you've never said out loud to anyone before, than this moment becomes unique!" Unique? Does it? Does it really? Off course not you plank. Please pass me the Imodium. I'll have a whole ****ing strip. The directing is... well. I've got nothing. Maybe Rawson Marshall Thurber just got word his grandmother exploded or something. Stick to directing comedies. No stick to directing commercials. This movie is so horrible it left me banging my head against a wall so hard it brought me back to the stone age. I give it 2 stars because I don't wanna be the guy that watched a 1 star movie.

Wow. What a terrible adaptation of a beautiful novel. Here are just a few gripes. - The screenwriter eliminated two major characters from the book. - Plot has been grotesquely altered. - Voiceovers sound as if they were directly lifted from written passages (which may read well but are not the same when spoken, especially with Chabon's writing style). - The acting is more wooden than a log cabin. (Esp. Bechstein) - This is supposed to be set in 1983??? Feels more like 2003... To be fair I couldn't bring myself to finish watching this movie, so it's possible that it redeemed itself... (sarcasm). I truly hope that no one paid to see this, or at least anyone who read the book hoping for something decent (a la Wonder Boys). I like Chabon as a writer but he should be ASHAMED of this adaptation.No stars.